- President Zelenskyy has been asking for ATACMS for a while, but some on the right in the U.S. politics have concerns over weapon supply there
United States President Joe Biden has informed his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, that Washington will provide Kyiv with ATACMS long-range missiles, US broadcaster NBC News has reported.
Ukraine has repeatedly asked the Biden administration for the long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to help hit supply lines, airbases and rail networks deep behind Russia’s front lines in occupied regions of Ukraine.
It has a range of about 180 miles, it’s guided, it can be fired from Ukraine’s existing fleet of missile launch systems and President Zelenskyy’s battlefield commanders have been asking for it for some time.
Sources in Washington have confirmed that the U.S. will provide a small number of the ATACMS to Ukraine soon.
Used tactically, they could hit Russian supply lines and command/control locations in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine already has Storm Shadow cruise missiles which have a longer range than the ATACMS. But these must be launched from fighter jets. They require good weather and a capable air force. Ukraine is short of fighter jets.
The ATACMS can be launched from the ground in all weather at a point closest to the frontline beyond which the target is. This is tactically advantageous.
ATACMS is designed for “deep attack of enemy second-echelon forces”, a US Army website states, and could be used to attack command and control centres, air defences and logistics sites well behind the front line.
But the White House has not announced a decision to provide Ukraine with the ATACMS system and the missiles were not publicly discussed when Zelenskyy visited Washington, DC on Thursday for talks with Biden, even as the US announced a new $325m military aid package for Kyiv.
The White House and the Pentagon declined to comment on the NBC report on Friday.
The Pentagon also declined to say whether any promise of ATACMS was given to Zelenskyy during his meetings on Thursday at the Department of Defense, saying: “In regards to ATACMS, we have nothing to announce.”
A date for delivery of the ATACMS was not revealed, according to NBC.
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned earlier this month that the supply of the long-range missiles to Kyiv would cross a “red line” and the U.S. would be viewed as “a party to the conflict” in Ukraine if it did provide such weapons.
Zelenskyy did not answer directly when asked about the NBC reports on ATACMS, but he noted that the US was the biggest single supplier of weaponry to Ukraine.
“We are discussing all the different types of weapons – long-range weapons and artillery, artillery shells with the calibre of 155mm, then air defence systems,” Zelenskyy said, speaking through an interpreter.
“We have a comprehensive discussion and [we] work with the United States at different levels,” he said.
The Washington Post also reported that the US plans to provide Ukraine with a version of the ATACMS that will be armed with cluster bomblets rather than a single warhead, citing several unnamed sources familiar with the deliberations, and that can fly up to 306km (190 miles).
But the U.S. has a number of concerns about supplying the ATACMS to Ukraine.
First, the enduring concern over how Russia would respond to ever-more sophisticated Western weaponry on the battlefield, especially if the weapons were capable of striking within Russia itself.
Given the positions of the current frontline and the range of the ATACMS, it would be a push for them to hit Russian territory.
The second particular concern with the ATACMS is supply. It’s understood that the American stock of the missile is not at a level which makes US officials feel entirely comfortable about handing a whole load of them over to Ukraine.
And of course, there is the emerging gap in American politics on the continuing funding of Ukraine in its war with Russia.
While the left wing of U.S. politics especially among Democratic Party politicians, there is overwhelming support for continued financial and material support for Ukraine, some vocal minority on the right especially those supporting former President Trump within the Republican Party oppose all ‘blank cheques’ funding for Ukraine.
And there are still some more traditional core of the Republican Party who believe that the battlefield stalemate and the concerns of the Trumpian caucus could all have been avoided if President Biden had provided all the weaponry needed much earlier.
Whichever way it goes, the world is watching how Russia would react with the supply and deployment of the ATACMS to Ukraine.
@Global Upfront Newspapers (GUN)
